Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Custom Skins => Topic started by: Bullethead on January 04, 2006, 10:16:52 PM
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I'm currently redoing a spit5 I did in AH1, which might have made it into a Malta scenaro--I forget. It's spit "X", BR112.
This plane was one of those flown off USS Wasp in the spring of 42, and was oversprayed in some blue color while at sea to make it harder to spot during the unarmed ferry flight. There's been a lot of debate as to what color blue was used, but since it was done aboard a USN ship, I figure they used the light blue the USN used at that time for upper camo. Certainly, one Malta squadron liked the idea and kept repainting its planes blue at Malta long after this episode, but then they used RAF colors. The photos of other spits in this batch from Wasp, while aboard before launch, tend to support my conclusion that they used USN early 1942 blue, but you can say a B&W photo proves anything :D.
Like I said, this plane arrived early in 42 and was used long and hard all through the spring and summer before finally being shot down over Sicily in September. It made a wheels-up landing on the beach and was extensively photographed by Germans and Italians. By this point in time, the plane was in pretty sad shape from all the rough use. And that's how I'm doing this skin.
I don't have the AH2 version far enough along to show off, but here's what the AH1 skin looked like. I've changed computers several times since I made this skin the 1st time, so I no longer have pics of it completed, but here's the AH1 skin itself :O
(http://people.delphiforums.com/JTWELLER/SPIT5SD.JPG)
As you can see, much of the blue overspray has worn off. In addition, much of the underlying desert camo has been scraped off by all the servicing and the Malta dust. The exhaust stain has a nice streak of burned paint in the middle of the sooty area, too.
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A very unique paint scheme :aok
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Would go along with the 'Blue' Malta V I'm doing, although mine is in the condition it actually flew off the carrier.
Mine has the code U*2 on the side and is going to use USN deck blue for the uppers (same as the one that was previoulsy in-game).
The exact blue has been a matter of great debate over the years, the concensus is this -
1) They were definately loaded onto the carriers in desert camo.
2) Somewhere on the voyage the uppers were painted (less the rudder, elevators and ailerons)
3) They arrived at Malta 'Blue"
4) A blue that would be found aboard ship would have been used
5) Therefore most probably USN Deck Blue.
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This is as far as I had got with the Malta V prior to a request for a specific VIII skin -
(http://www.cyberonic.com/~kreed/malta.jpg)
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Question: Why not the control surfaces?
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They were concerned it would affect them adversely.
They weren't exactly done in a controlled environment , pics show overspray, uneven coats etc, was a very rushed job.
Which also expalins why which blue they used was never documented :( .
As I said concensus is it was either USN Deck Blue, or USN Navy Blue.
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Sure wish the nose of the AH Spit V looked better. It just looks off to me.
Skin looks good though :)
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Dan check out my post on the Aircraft / Vehivles forum - "Somethings up with the Spit models".
Tks - Like I said it's sure very, very early stages, I broke off to do one of the XVI's you requested.
Now concentrating on this one and finishing up the Pink IX.
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Kev367th said:
Would go along with the 'Blue' Malta V I'm doing, although mine is in the condition it actually flew off the carrier. Mine has the code U*2
Yeah, there's a good photo of that one in the Wasp's hangar. You can really see how they didn't bother to to make a round mask for the roundel but just used straight pieces of tape, leaving jagged interface between the yellow ring and blue overspray. Then when they pulled the tape off, it took a good deal of the yellow ring with it. It also took the top of the 1 in the serial number, and pieces of the U and 2 :).
Your blue is a darker than mine, more like the top color in the 3-tone USN camo, whereas I'm using the lighter blue they had all over the top before the 3-tone came out late in 42- early 43. I did that because I figured at this early point in 42, maybe they didn't have the darker color aboard yet. It's kinda hard to tell from the photos I have. OTOH, if it really was the darker shade, I can say the Malta summer sun faded it out while it was being worn away. And who knows? Maybe in the circumstances, they painted some spits with both colors because they didn't have enough of 1 of them, or didn't want to use it all up because the USN still needed it for its own planes aboard. I think 249 Sqd used a fairly dark blue later on when it painted its planes on Malta long after all this.
2) Somewhere on the voyage the uppers were painted (less the rudder, elevators and ailerons)
I've seen pics of some that had the blue on the control surfaces, too ("B" BR246, for instance). Looks like mine had it, judging from the pics of it on the beach, so I did it that way in AH1. Yours, however, at least doesn't seem to have the blue on the left aileron, but that could just be a trick of the light from the different reflectivity of metal and fabric (if yours still had fabric ailerons).
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Yeah
I think the problem is the whole episode was never documented at all. Most 'decisions' have to be based on pictures and the general concensus of opinion.
I think the which blue debate will go on long after we've shuffled off the mortal coils, lol.
Never seen a picture which shows any Malta Spit with really light uppers indicating a really light shade of blue though.
I think this comes from - some bombers (Beauforts?) on the way to deployment were given two tone blue uppers (Dark and Light Mediterranean Blue) at Alexandria MU.
Early guesses to which blue relied on that to try and figure out which blue was used.
Found this snippet from "Merlins Over Malta"
When the aircraft were put aboard the USS Wasp they were wearing standard camouflage schemes but on the deck of an aircraft carrier sailing through the Mediterranean these camouflage patterns offered no protection. The solution was to paint the top surfaces of the aircraft blue. Paint was taken from the stores and applied to the aircraft. There is no definitive colour match because paint was mixed and watered down to ensure there was enough to go around.
Backed up by a guy whos Grandfather was RAF groundcrew on USS Wasp -
My late grandfather was an RAF ground crew member who was put on Wasp to maintain the Spitfires and prep them for the flight to Malta.
Both my father and I remember him saying that the Spitfires were painted with deck paint from the US stores during the voyage. I remember him also saying that they repainted them several times on the way, and were quite surprised when they actually took off due to the extra weight of the paint! I suspect they were delivered in desert camouflage, I seem to remember him saying that at one stage there was some green added to the scheme.
I also remember him saying that the underside was repainted at least once, but I couldn't say what colour.
Unfortunately by the time I was old enough to realise this was "significant" information, his memory wasn't sufficiently good to recall it.
So basically pick a blue that would have been available on-ship and knock yourself out :) .
249 sqn in Malta continued painting their aircraft in non-standard colors.
Do a search youll find many many threads on it and discussions if it was actually even blue at all.
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Update on mine -
(http://www.cyberonic.com/~kreed/malta2.jpg)
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The blue's too smooth and professionally painted.
It would cover everything (stencils, walk lines, etc) and show the old paint scheme in the gaps around roundels and markings, and would be uneven.
As it is, it looks like it was factory-applied. Still in progress, I realize, but it's the feedback I have at the current progress.
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Removed stencils from upper surfaces.
Used multiple cloud layers to get different 'thicknesses' of paint.
Roundels - they just oversprayed, hard to see on wings, easier on fuselage.
Will re-instate red spinner, prob with little blue overspray on it.
(http://www.cyberonic.com/~kreed/malta3.jpg)
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Muuuuu-uuuuu-uuuuch better! :aok
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Kev367th said:
...There is no definitive colour match because paint was mixed and watered down to ensure there was enough to go around. ... So basically pick a blue that would have been available on-ship and knock yourself out :)
That's been pretty much my position whenever this has come up. You can argue it, with equal justification, any way you want, based on the same available evidence. So I go with the lighter blue in this case, because it goes worse with the exposed desert colors. This is supposed to be an ugly plane, and I think the clash of colors enhances that effect :).
Off topic but kinda not... I did something similar to this in real life. When I was in Desert Storm, all our vehicles arrived with the standard ETO green/black/brown scheme they left the States in, which made them highly visible against the pale tan sand. We managed to steal a small supply of standard desert camo paint from the Army, which we had to thin down to go around all our vehicles, and still spray on thin. So you could see darker areas on them where the black and brown blotches kinda showed through, and especially the outlines of all the blotches were their colors overlapped a couple inches and made darker wavy lines. We also masked off the stencils and serial numbers, leaving them black on ETO camo, like on these spits. And as we went along, we realized we didn't have enough paint so we started leaving first the brown spots exposed, then some of the green spots as well, on the later vehicles. The whole job was done by unskilled labor, in a huge rush, in the dark, with a strong wind blowing, so it looked like crap all in all. Lots of overspray on window glass and tires, missed spots here and there, general unevenness, drips and runs, handprints, etc. Then later on, we had to put these black "good guy" triangles on them, which we did with a couple cans of household spraypaint we stole from somewhere. This looked like gang graffiti, just 1 curved, irregular hand pass for each line. Then the oilwells burned and all this blackish gunk came down on the upper surfaces and streaked all down the sides in the rain.
I imagine that even with color photos (most of which were taken with disposable cardboard cameras, carried around in packs for weeks in the field, and finally developed in-country by questionable means), future modelers will argue long and hard over the colors of these vehicles :D.
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LOL, yup certain to cause a few headaches.
Looks like it will continue to be a mystery, and maybe a good excuse for a touch of artistic interpretation.
Interestingly the only Spits that were repainted aboard ship were the ones delivered off USS Wasp in Op Calendar.
Also all the Spits that were delivered by carrier left with 4x20mm, the outer two being removed once they reached Malta.
http://www.ipmscanada.com/threads.html
Has 4 threads on Malta Spits, still nothing conclusive lol.
249sqn Malta Spits
(http://www.constable.ca/249sqspits.jpg)
Well either single color uppers, or the Dark Earth/Extra Dark Sea Grey that has been suggested.
Your guess lol.
Good pics (B/W) Malta spits here
http://www.killifish.f9.co.uk/Malta%20WWII/Spitfire.htm
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Just because I had some spre time I tried a test -
Took the current V I am doing, changed it to dark earth/extra dark sea grey upper.
Got a screenshot pasted it into PSP8 then changed it too a greyscale image.
Not other processing e.g darkening etc.
(http://www.cyberonic.com/~kreed/test.jpg)
Look familiar to the 249 sqn pics in post above? You can't even tell its two tone, looks like a single color on the uppers.
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That looks GREAT!!!!!!!! Nice job
nick172
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Kev367th said:
249sqn Malta Spits ... Well either single color uppers, or the Dark Earth/Extra Dark Sea Grey that has been suggested. Your guess lol.
It's even hard to say conclusively that all 4 are really 249 Sqd. Some folks would see 2 of those planes as having 1 instead of T for the squad code, and say they were survivors from 601 Sqd's Wasp batch that hadn't been repainted yet. OTOH, given they all have new-school roundels and 1 has clipped wings, it's probably safer to say they've all got the T of 249 as of the latter 1/2 of 42.
As to colors, they all look to have 2-tone camo scheme, in the mirrored pattern on the 3 closest planes, but I can't tell that on the furthest one. I'd wager they're all in desert camo mostly due to the color of the spinners, which all look red to me more than they do any other possible color. The leading plane is probably older and is more faded than the others, or the others have recently been repainted.
That brings up #4's left wing roundel. If I had to guess, I'd say it was in the process of being repainted. Looks like they went over the blue ring with a light primer, then repainted the upper wing camo, overspraying the 8 o'clock area of the roundel primer, but hadn't gotten around to applying the final blue on top before this sortie.
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One thing I just noticed: Don't wear down the wing walk areas. This is freshly painted stuff, and it's probably thick and spotchy. It's not been in use nearly long enough to have worn through the blue *and* the colors underneath. Chances are you'd have some scuffs and scrapes, but not enough to wear down through the entire coat of paint.
I'm thinking it's like scratching a painted wooden surface. You can see a color difference, but it's more of a shade difference, you don't usually see unpainted wood under the scratch.
Idle thought of the day.
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Krusty said:
I'm thinking it's like scratching a painted wooden surface. You can see a color difference, but it's more of a shade difference, you don't usually see unpainted wood under the scratch.[/B]
I assme you're talking about Kev's fresher plane. Here's a pic of one of this batch of spits after it'd been on Malta just a little while:
(http://people.delphiforums.com/JTWELLER/BlueSpit.JPG)
As you can see, the shoddy workmanship of the blue paint is evident in how it's coming off in large hunks, apparently in a very short time. This would expose the desert camo to wear very rapidly. Also note the elevator has the paint, except for the tip which they missed. Also note another example of the yellow ring of the roundel being partially removed by the masking tape.
The caption says this was in 249 Sqd. However, at this point 249's code was still GN, and all the planes of this batch were originally in 601 or 603, which were 1-(letter) and 2-(letter), respectively. When they took the spits from these dweebs and gave them to the vet squads, they apparently just painted out the numbers and left the single letters, which is why mine has just an X like this has just a B. If you look close, you can make yourself think you see the vague outline of part of an over-painted 2 behind the roundel on this plane. Question is, what color did they paint it out with? Or did they just peel it off? These codes were apparently applied on top of the blue paint, at least on some planes, and might have come off as easily as the blue itself.
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OK, I've had the day off sitting here at the TA in Pembroke, NY, so I've gotten this far along enough to show progress. I've just the blue roughed in, and still have to tear it all up, plus ALL the weathering, but you can at least get the idea from this. Figured I needed to put up a pic of it, since it's what the thread started out about :D. But doing the extensive chipping is going to take a long while. IIRC, I spent several weeks on that in AH1.
(http://people.delphiforums.com/JTWELLER/MaltaX-IW-01.JPG)
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Originally posted by Krusty
One thing I just noticed: Don't wear down the wing walk areas. This is freshly painted stuff, and it's probably thick and spotchy. It's not been in use nearly long enough to have worn through the blue *and* the colors underneath. Chances are you'd have some scuffs and scrapes, but not enough to wear down through the entire coat of paint.
I'm thinking it's like scratching a painted wooden surface. You can see a color difference, but it's more of a shade difference, you don't usually see unpainted wood under the scratch.
Idle thought of the day.
Was one step ahead of you.
I had already removed the wing walk areas when I slightly changed the blue color.
Only very very slight chipping is around the wing gun loading access panels, and a few of the engine access panes. Even then it is only as far down as the underlying desert camo.
Will post a pic later.
Bullethead - Looking good :)
If, (a big if) the serial # in your pic is BR246 that would make it the one I am doing. In which case it went to 603sqn. The plot thickens :) .
Apparently I have a choice of 3 spinners colors no-one knows for sure -
Red, black, or overpainted blue.
(http://www.cyberonic.com/~kreed/malta4.jpg)
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I think it would look sweet with black overpaintd with blue. How do you do wear patterns on a prop? diagonal streaks? And in what direction?
EDIT: Bullethead, my comment was about the other blue spit. Seeing your progress I like it too, but I think it needs a bit more blue on the inboard wings. Worn blue, but more blue :)
Have you considered trying to depict the blue "stuck" in the panel lines (not wearing off as badly) or something along those lines?
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kev, silly question, are the control sufaces supposed to be different colours, or is it just because you haven't started on them??
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He mentioned that they did not paint the control surfaces
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I did profiles for the Corgi/Merlins over Malta bit at the request of Peter Arnold who was working with the Merlins over Malta crowd to get a Spit and Hurricane back to Malta last fall.
At Legends I got a chance to be part of the discussion with Peter Arnold and Clive Denny, who did the painting of BM597 as well as flying it.
While this was done with some concessions due to the temporary nature of the paint, this is what we came up with. There was no real consensus other then believing that US Navy paint was used. I doubt the answer will ever be known unless someone comes up with a paint chip.
Info on the diecast Spit that the profile was done for as well as images of BM597 painted up for the trip to Malta
http://www.diecast-aviation.co.uk/html/merlinsboxset.html
http://www.merlinsovermalta.com/
(http://www.merlinsovermalta.com/images/mt_02.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/861_1136877048_maltaspitvb.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/861_1136877063_maltaspitvbstarboard.jpg)
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Originally posted by Krusty
He mentioned that they did not paint the control surfaces
They appear to fall into 3 categories -
1) No paint at all.
2) A light dusting.
3) A 'proper' coat.
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well kev i think you've done such a great job it would be a shame if they weren't painted :(
it would just look better if they were the same colour IMHO
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Looks single color to me, and at least with this one, I don't see any color difference on the control surfaces.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/861_1136913810_maltaspit.jpg)
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Just for comparison. Here's the Spit the Bullethead's AH1 skin is based on.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/861_1136914551_maltaspits.jpg)
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Heres mine.
The ailerons are not painted, definately looks lighter. Which fits with what I read about the control surfaces not being painted on some because they were conscerned it would affect them.
But as I said, it obviously wasn't applicable to all to them.
(http://hsfeatures.com/images/maltaspitfirese_MBmaltaU2.jpg)
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IT almost looks like some of the Spits were repainted Malta with a darker color as the one I posted as well as others show the dark color covering the big Vokes filter as well.
Kinda makes you wish you could go back in time for a quick peek and a photo with a color camera :)
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Thought is (esp with 249 sqn) is that the mid-stone was overpainted with Extra Dark Sea Grey, or in some cases whole uppers done in it.
They are that close in black and white you'd probably not notice demarcation lines and assume as single overall color.
Like the 'test black and white pic further up .
Was done by doing a dark earth/ED Sea Grey camo, getting a screenie then just making it greyscale.
You can't even tell it's two different colors on the uppers.
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Krusty said:
EDIT: Bullethead, my comment was about the other blue spit. Seeing your progress I like it too, but I think it needs a bit more blue on the inboard wings. Worn blue, but more blue :)
Well, seeing that the blue seems to have come off in big chunks fairly soon after arrival, (kinda like Kev had originally, before the latest pics) I figured anywhere that got a lot of traffic would have lost almost all the blue after 6 or 7 months of daily use. Then the desert would have gotten a lot of wear. I also have the blue peeled back from the leading edges, too. Because the inner wings have all the traffic for the engine and gun bays, I don't have much blue there.
Have you considered trying to depict the blue "stuck" in the panel lines (not wearing off as badly) or something along those lines?
IMHO, this would be totally unrealistic. See my numerous rants about panel lines :). For ANY paint to be inside a panel line, there would have to be zero sealant in the tiny gap between the edges of the panels at the time the paint was applied. I seriously doubt this would be the case on any plane (except maybe mid-war Russians and late-war Germans), especially not on factory-fresh spits like these were at the time they turned blue.
In fact, on the contrary, panel and rivet lines lose their paint the fastest on upper wings. This is because these lines show where the underlying structure is, the spaces between these lines being unsupported sheet metal. Therefore, personnel try hard to walk only on panel and rivet lines to keep from pushing in the skin. But when they don't, and the skin gets pushed in, that makes the structure lines stick up higher and therefore take even more wear.
Here's how it looks now. I've only really gotten the wings into final shape (except for gunsmoke). Been doing a lot of driving lately so haven't had that much time to work on this:
(http://people.delphiforums.com/JTWELLER/MaltaX-IW-02.JPG)